Domestic Affairs

An election that nobody wanted produced a hallmark in Japanese politics in 2005 that nobody expected. For the first time since the end of World War II, Japanese voters handed a government more than two-thirds of the seats in the powerful lower house of the Diet (parliament). The surprise early election, which was held on September 11, came about as a result of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s refusal to accept defeat on postal reform—a goal he had been seeking throughout much of his political career. In early August some 30 members of Koizumi’s own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) joined the opposition in the upper house of the Diet to vote down Koizumi’s plan to privatize Japan’s postal service, the country’s largest savings and insurance institution. The plan had earlier passed the lower house by a mere five votes. Rejecting the advice of advisers who warned him against staging an election when his party was split, Koizumi carried through on his threats to dissolve the lower house should his privatization bills end in defeat. He then purged antireform members of his party and handpicked high-profile, pro-reform candidates (described by the media as “assassins”) to run against them. The prime minister also made a direct appeal to voters for postal reform and declared that he would resign if his coalition government lost its majority “even by one seat.”

Koizumi’s gamble paid off. Predictions that Japanese voters would for the first time carry out a change of government evaporated as the LDP won the largest percentage of seats in any election since 1969 and scored the biggest-ever single-election gain. With the LDP claiming 296 of the 480 contested seats (a pickup of 84 seats) and its coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito Party, taking another 31 seats, the ruling coalition increased its presence in the lower house to a commanding 327 seats. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) saw its share dwindle from 175 to 113 seats. So overwhelming was the coalition victory that leaders of both the LDP and the New Komeito Party called for Koizumi to continue serving as prime minister after his term as party president ended in September 2006. Koizumi, however, said that he had promised many times to step down on schedule and would not change his mind now.

DPJ leader Katsuya Okada resigned even before the vote counting ended. He was replaced by Seiji Maehara, who at the age of 43 became the youngest Japanese politician ever selected to head a major party. In a vote by party members, Maehara, an expert on security issues who favoured strong ties with the U.S., won by two votes over former DPJ leader Naoto Kan. Maehara promised to “revitalize” the DPJ, eliminate waste in government spending, and push for a revision of Japan’s no-war constitution to include the right of “collective self-defense.”

Several factors that had an impact on the election underscored the current strength of the LDP. One was that an unprecedented number of highly qualified women agreed to run for the LDP instead of for the opposition. A record 26 female LDP candidates won seats. A second factor was the resumption of political contributions to the LDP from the powerful Japan Keidanren, a pro-business lobby group. In 1994 the group had halted contributions when the LDP appeared to be losing power. Another factor was the continuing success of politicians who took over seats in the Diet formerly occupied by their fathers, grandfathers, or other relatives. Of all winning candidates this time, 125 won “inherited seats.” Of those, 107 were Liberal Democrats.

The only negative for the LDP was its continuing reliance upon the New Komeito Party. Drawing upon members of a Buddhist laymen’s group, the Soka Gakkai, who were expected to support the party as part of their religious practices, the New Komeito had been a coalition partner of the LDP since 1999. It had backed Liberal Democratic candidates running in single-seat districts in exchange for the LDP’s support for the New Komeito’s proportional representation lists from which the bulk of its politicians was elected. Many Japanese observers believed that the LDP could not win a majority without the New Komeito’s support.

In the aftermath of the election, Koizumi returned his postal reform bills to the Diet, where the legislation sailed through the lower house and won approval in the upper house by a 134–100 vote in October. Privatization of the postal service was to be completed in stages by the year 2017, with shares going on sale to the public beginning in 2007. Whether the postal service’s estimated ¥330 trillion (about $2.9 trillion) in assets would actually be put under the control of the private sector and how many jobs the privatized postal company would maintain remained unclear.

By year’s end, speculation had begun to mount over possible successors to the prime minister. Shinzo Abe, the 51-year-old chief cabinet secretary, was viewed by many as the front-runner, but he, like Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda, 69, a former chief cabinet secretary who also was touted as a potential leader, belonged to the faction of LDP politicians headed by former prime minister Yoshiro Mori. Choosing a third consecutive prime minister from the same faction would violate the ruling party’s tradition of balancing power. Other possibilities were Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 60, and Taro Aso, 65, who was appointed foreign minister in a new cabinet Koizumi formed on October 31.

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